Russian soldier asks victim’s widow to forgive him at war crimes trial
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since the start of the war in Ukraine testified Thursday that he shot a civilian on orders from two officers and pleaded for his victim’s widow to forgive him.
Sgt. Vadim Shyshimarin, 21, told the court that the officer insisted the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to Ukrainian forces.
Shyshimarin could get life in prison if convicted of shooting the man in the head through an open car window in a village in the northeastern Sumy region Feb. 28, four days into the Russian invasion.
Looking subdued, Shyshimarin said he at first disobeyed his immediate commanding officer’s order to shoot the unarmed civilian, but had no choice but to follow the order when it was repeated forcefully by another officer.
Shyshimarin pleaded guilty to the charges during Wednesday’s hearing.
On Thursday, Shyshimarin asked the victim’s widow, who also appeared at the trial, to forgive him for what he did.
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“I realize that you can’t forgive me, but I’m pleading to you for forgiveness,” Shyshimarin said.
The woman, Kateryna Shelipova, said her 62-year-old husband, Oleksandr Shelipov, got out to check what was going on when gunshots rang just outside their home. When the shooting ceased shortly afterward, she walked out and found her husband shot dead just outside their home.
“He was all to me. He was my defender,” she said.
Shelipova told the court that Shyshimarin deserved a life sentence for killing her husband but added that she would not mind if he were exchanged as part of a possible prisoner swap with Russia for the surrendered Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
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The prosecutor asked for a life sentence for Shyshimarin, and the trial adjourned until Friday.
Shyshimarin, a captured member of a Russian tank unit, is being prosecuted under a section of the Ukrainian criminal code that addresses the laws and customs of war.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against dozens of Russian soldiers for alleged offenses that include bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. It was not immediately clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia.
As the inaugural war crimes case in Ukraine, Shyshimarin’s prosecution is being watched closely. Investigators have been collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
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